


Fighting the Intangible

by beeswaxing



Series: Trophy Wife [13]
Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ
Genre: M/M, Mpreg, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2019-01-18 12:59:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12388575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beeswaxing/pseuds/beeswaxing
Summary: There are many realities a young supermodel can afford to overlook, but when one reality refuses to go away, manifesting into something so tangible that he simply cannot ignore it any longer, perhaps it's time to acknowledge that one reality.





	Fighting the Intangible

**Author's Note:**

> We're still in "history" for the moment. The first oneshot in this series was set in July 2012. This is set in Oct 2011, they've only been married for 10 months and Changmin is a month off his 19th birthday.

 

He’s been restless and upset for several days now. Understandably so, but he doesn’t want to re-visit it. He focuses on something else instead.

The fact that he’s sitting alone in the business class cabin of a non-stop flight from Los Angeles to Seoul.

Travelling alone is normal in his line of work, but he finds that he is starting to hate it more and more.

In all honesty, Changmin has always hated it.

All the stares.

All the whispers.

All the second, third, and fourth glances.

He’s not being particularly arrogant about it. It is simply his reality.

Changmin is just someone people naturally stare at.

It happened when he was a kid, doing something as mundane and normal as playing badminton during PE class.

A modeling scout happened to be passing by at the time, and the rest is ancient history. One look at Changmin’s face, and the woman fell hard, no hook, no line, and certainly no sinker necessary.

Already over six feet tall at fourteen, the awkward and rather lonely teenager took the lifeline offered to him at a chance for bigger and better things.

At seventeen, his face does him another favour, catching the eye of one of the most powerful men in South Korea.

The teenager had thrown in more than a few prickly thorns in the way of the Jung mogul, but to no avail.

A dangerous man in ways only Changmin can truly appreciate, the teenager resisted for a very long time.

Perhaps it is time to face the reality.

He is well and truly caught.

—

The supermodel unbuckles his seatbelt the second the plane comes to a halt. The flight attendants barely have enough time to open the cabin door when the he strides past them without a backward glance. Preoccupied with his thoughts, he comes off as aloof and rude when he keeps going even after his name is called out well within hearing range.

_Jung Changmin_

—

The stares make his skin crawl.

He feels like everyone can see into him.

Everyone but his husband.

—

_”It’s nothing to worry about. I know it’s difficult to hear, but it happens a lot. For some reason medical science has yet to be able to explain, the first is almost never viable, and it usually ends within the first five weeks. You were on the cusp of four weeks. Less than a tenth are ever carried to term, and at least half of those usually suffer from some kind of health problems. I personally choose to see it as a cleansing process. It’s nature’s way of clearing the way, so to speak. Most don’t even notice that it has happened, and you wouldn’t have either if it weren’t for the blood test. I’m truly sorry.”_

_Changmin remains silent, hands clasped tightly in his lap, he stares at the examination table in the doctor’s office. He’d felt out of sorts for awhile now, but decided perhaps it was the greasy American food that was upsetting his body._

_“Is your husband with you? Will you be ok?”_

_Empty concern. He doesn’t need her sympathy._

_The eighteen year old squares his shoulders, and takes a deep breath before schooling his features into a polite but disinterested expression._

_“I’ll be fine.”_

—

He enters the house, eyes landing immediately on the discarded jackets on the back of the couch.

Not one.

Not two.

Jung Yunho, CEO and _Organised Mess Extraordinaire_ saw fit to leave five bespoke suit jackets rather haphazardly on the back of their twenty-five thousand dollar leather couch. The obnoxious monstrosity of the couch is bad enough, but the extra few thousand dollars of tailored cloth definitely do not belong on it.

Changmin’s eyes tighten at the sight. He knows his husband is home because there is vibrancy in the air when the man is around. The apartment fairly tingles with his presence, whether the supermodel can see him or not. The man is more than likely where he always is in the early evening like this. Changmin’s flight had not just arrived a little earlier than scheduled, but he had left his modeling assignment three days early. He’d paid a fine for it, for they had needed to fly a replacement out, but the teenager just couldn’t remain there any longer.

Alone and in LA.

Alone and upset in LA.

Not knowing how to call his husband for help, Changmin does the next logical thing, returning to the man sooner than expected. The irrational fear within him that he refuses to acknowledge - already fragile, the teenager chooses not to give Yunho the opportunity to say no if he’d ask him to come, unwilling and unable to deal with it if that actually came to pass.

Nor does he want to examine why he wants his husband more than even his best friend.

Jaejoong doesn’t know, and Changmin doesn’t think he’ll ever tell him. But it isn’t his friend’s loving hugs that he is looking for.

It is his husband’s strong and sure embrace.

Yunho may not always know what is wrong with Changmin’s world, but the teenager always finds solace in his arms.

Why that is so…is something intangible. Changmin doesn’t like intangible things.

Chewing on his lower lip, a habit he finds exceptionally irritating when he realizes he’s doing it, he goes about righting the wrongs that he can see.

Five jackets, three comic books, seven ties, one laptop and too many dirty dishes to count later, Changmin straightens, dusting off his hands as he glares at the bed of one of the spare rooms. It seems to him that Yunho needs a minder 24/7. The teenager is not normally away from home for this long, and after their huge fight a couple of months ago when Yunho finally discovered where Changmin had been squirreling away all the rubbish he leaves lying around, the older man had been good at trying to pick up after himself.

Key word being _trying_.

The young wife can only hope that his husband had intended on tidying up before his scheduled arrival.

And he hasn’t even ventured into their bedroom yet. God only knows what he might find there. The common areas were bad enough.

—

He drops off his bag in the shared closet, the bedroom surprisingly tidy. Even the bed is made. It is as if Yunho made sure his mess did not cross the sanctified threshold of their bedroom. Changmin recalls their fight, and how it was the one thing that he was truly aggravated about. The common areas were a non-issue, but the bedroom is Changmin’s space, and it appears that Yunho was listening.

His heart tugs at that, because if only in this, he knows his husband is trying.

The teenager unwinds his muffler, pulling off the thick woolen accessory and shrugs off his jacket, hanging both items up before he goes in search of his missing husband.

He doesn’t lose his shades.

—

Yunho is chuckling at the antics of the protagonist when the door to his library opens.

He doesn’t look up from his book, eyes running to the bottom of the page, before he places it face down on the side table. He leans forward to pick up his drink, tossing back the finger worth of whiskey, suppressing the irrational urge to crash tackle his wife and smother him in kisses.

Yes, he misses him that fucking much, be he can be patient and be a little dignified about it.

As dignified as he can ever be in the teeshirt he chose that evening.

Changmin hesitates briefly, wondering not for the first time if he is intruding.

This is Yunho’s space.

He watches his husband carefully, noting the way Yunho had set aside his book, and subsequently his glass after finishing his drink. The man’s body language is a little tense, and normally this would cause the teenager to decide that perhaps he is intruding.

However, two days of battling alone, Changmin gives in for the first time in the history of their marriage. Shutting the door quietly behind him, he strides over to Yunho, kicking his husband’s calf to make the man bring his knees together, Changmin sits astride the surprised man’s lap, wraps his arms around his broader torso, and drops his cheek against his shoulder.

Yunho is caught off guard by the show of affection. He’d tensed at the kick, knowing the state of the apartment and that it is probably well deserved.

However, instead of a well-aimed cushion, he gets a lapful of snuggly teenager instead.

“You’re home early.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

Yunho smiles at the dry retort, squeezing the teenager. “Why are you back early?”

A slight pause. “Shooting finished.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Changmin straightens, staring down at Yunho, he pulls a face and deadpans, “Surprise.”

The older man chuckles, leaning up to press a kiss against his wife’s dry mouth. “I like this surprise,” he murmurs huskily.

The kiss that deepens naturally, but thwarted after a minute by the sunglasses still perched on Changmin’s nose.

Yunho reaches up to pull them off, but his hand is knocked away.

Frowning slightly, he tilts his head, staring quizzically at his wife whose beautiful deep brown eyes are hidden from him.

“Changmin?”

The teenager is silent, staring at the reddened cupid bow of his husband’s mouth.

“Do you want children?”

“Huh?”

“Was the question too difficult for you?”

Yunho drops his hands to his wife’s waist, slipping his hands below his teeshirt, thumbs stroking the hard planes of the teenager’s ripped abdomen. The supermodel has lost his softness since they got married, muscles popping out from his fitness regime and the demands of his work. And in all honesty, his age probably has something to do with it. Oh to be eighteen again and able to eat anything without putting on a single ounce of fat.

He senses something is up, but he doesn’t want to push it.

Lifting his eyes to look at his wife’s face, he wonders if the teenager knows how much he is showing.

Jaw taut, mouth pursed, messy fringe around his eyes and sunnies, there is a tiny cloud of sadness over the teenager’s head that Changmin is valiantly trying to hide. His wife is almost nineteen, but even with his eyes behind those thick sunglasses, Yunho knows there is something wrong. Changmin gets like this occasionally, but this is the first time that he hasn’t hidden himself till he wrestles whatever issue it is that he has into submission. It didn’t take long for Yunho to learn to respect Changmin’s intelligence, for the teenager is wise far beyond his years. In fact, he’d grown to appreciate it well before they got married. He’d also learned that Changmin needs his space.

Changmin’s frustration with any problem makes him pricklier and snarkier than he normally is.

However, instead of talking it out, he keeps it to himself.

Sometimes, he goes out of his way to avoid Yunho because his temper is so frayed by his frustration he actively tries not to take it out on people.

He does take it out on his best friend though, but Jaejoong is more than capable of giving it back, hit for hit.

With Yunho, Changmin is always a little more cautious. They’re not even married a full year yet, and while Yunho trusts his wife, he still doesn’t truly know what makes him tick.

He drops his eyes, following the line of Changmin’s neck, down to the body hidden behind his teeshirt, all the way down to his waist where Yunho’s hands are still caressing the soft, smooth skin.

“I’ll take any children you can give me, Changdola.”

The teenager stiffens minutely at the endearment. Yunho’s hands are distracting as hell, but he’s too heartsick and stressed to react the way he normally would.

“Relax, baby…”

“Don’t call me baby,” comes the automatic reply.

“You’re still a baby, Changmin. There’s no hurry to grow up, is there?” Yunho questions quietly. “Sometimes I think you take on too much on yourself. I’m your husband, and I will share your burdens if you let me.”

“An ass then?”

Yunho resists the urge to role his eyes at his wife’s choice of words. “Yes, while an ass is a beast of burden, I’m your husband not an animal. You’re eighteen, not eight,” he chides.

Changmin bites back another rude remark, focusing on his husband’s earlier words. His own hands start tracing out the character on Yunho’s teeshirt.

Yunho is wearing the Minnie Mouse teeshirt that Changmin had bought him as a joke from his shoot at Tokyo Disneyland in the summer.

He never thought his husband would ever wear it.

And yet here he is, the pink teeshirt rather snug on his broad muscular frame, and looking so out of place.

Laughter gurgles in Changmin’s throat.

Yunho’s brow furrows at the sound, smiling when the strange sound explodes into something he’s more familiar with as his wife starts to laugh.

Rubbing his hands over the front of Yunho’s body, Changmin slowly calms down, shaking his head as he leans down to wrap his arms around his husband once again. Forehead pressed against Yunho’s jaw, the teenager’s voice is tiny compared to his laughter just a few seconds ago.

“I can’t believe you’re wearing this.”

“Why not? You bought it for me didn’t you?”

“Yes, but—“

“A good husband will wear whatever his wife buys him,” Yunho interrupts, the smile in his voice is very apparent. His hands move to his wife’s back, caressing the warm skin.

Changmin chuckles at that, arms wrapping tighter as his woes are forgotten briefly, responding to the teasing lilt in his husband’s voice. Between the two of them, Yunho has always been the more playful despite who he is. The teenager, as most teenagers are wont to be, takes himself too seriously.

“So if I buy you a frilly garter with matching pantaloons, you’d wear that too?”

“I’ll wear anything I recognize. You just spoke french to me for all I know, and I’m not about to agree to something I don’t understand. Bad business to do that.”

The teen muffles his laughter against his husband’s pink teeshirt. He can feel the laughter vibrating in the older man’s chest too.

_That_ is something tangible, and it comforts him.

The chuckles die off though, and the couple sit in silence, arms around each other, neither saying a word.

Their breaths naturally fall into the same rhythm, breathing in tangent, both waiting.

Yunho waits for his wife to be ready to share whatever is burdening him.

Changmin waits for the courage to speak.

—

The older man wonders several times if Changmin has fallen asleep, because apart from taking off his sunglasses and tossing it away about fifteen minutes ago, the only movements have been the rise and fall of his chest against Yunho. The teenager is hiding against his throat, the only indication he has that the boy isn’t asleep is the distressed little sounds he makes as he wrestles with his thoughts.

Yunho is patient though, and so he continues to wait in silence, his hands never stopping in their stroking, hoping to convey as much comfort to his wife as possible.

“What if I can’t have children?”

“Then you can’t have children,” Yunho replies without hesitation, brow furrowing at the strange question. They haven’t even been married a year, and he wonders if people were hassling the teen in LA.

“What do you mean?”

“Exactly that.”

“But I thought you wanted children?”

“I said I’d take any child you _can_ give me, Changmin-ah.”

“No, I meant before. Before we were married, I asked about birth control and you said no because you want children.”

“Have you been using birth control?”

“Of course not.”

“Then what’s the issue?”

Changmin is silent, playing over the conversation again. He doesn’t know how to say it without actually saying it. He made the decision on the plane that he is not going to say anything, but something inside him needs to know.

Yunho sighs, not wanting to spook his wife but not really knowing what it is the teenager wants from him. All he can offer is the security that he isn’t going anywhere no matter what. Their entire relationship has shown him that he needs Changmin more than he thought he’d ever need from anyone. The teenager takes care of the small things that no one else notices.

They were barely a month wed when he realized that Yunho gets gastric.

Then the random text messages started.

_I know how much you like nuts so I filled your drawer. You’ll get mine when you finish them._

_Try the bulgogi jiggae from that restaurant across the road at lunch today. Buy me some if it’s nice._

_Jae taught me how to make kimchi fried rice. I suck at it so you might want to eat lunch before I accidentally poison us._

_I ordered lunch but we’re still shooting and no food is allowed. It’s my favorite and I don’t want it to go to waste so I’m telling them to deliver it to you. Make sure you eat it._

And it took Yunho three full months before he realized Changmin knew.

A note taped to his gastric medication in his briefcase.

_Please tell your doctor I have permission to get these refilled for you. You’re always forgetting that I had to fake having gastric to get these and the doctor is getting suspicious._

And while Yunho kept “losing” all manner of belongings for months, not realizing his wife was sick of his mess and dumping them in the spare room, the truly important documents always end up safe in his briefcase.

His clothes are always pressed and ready. Yunho not realizing that Changmin had very subtly been “suggesting” what he wears every morning by strategically placing them in places he knows Yunho will see first. It took several comments over a few weeks before he realized his wife had been coordinating their outfits for maximum impact whenever they appeared together in public especially when it was “by chance”.

It took a good year for Yunho to wonder at how strawberries managed to stay in season that his customary fruit bowl is always at least 50% full of it. After questioning his secretary, he found out that Changmin had been providing the strawberry delivery every morning via a fruit grocer. This started from well before they were married.

What has Yunho offered in return?

Financial security? Emotional stability?

Really?

“Changmin, listen carefully ok?”

He gets a quiet grunt in reply, and that’s about as good as it gets for now.

“Children are a bonus, but bonuses are never guaranteed unless agreed upon beforehand. While I may have mentioned that I wanted children, it was in relation to your question about birth control more than anything else. I didn’t want you artificially stopping the possibility. However, if it wasn’t biologically possible to begin with, then that’s fine. I married you. I didn’t marry you for the guarantee, or even possibility of having children.”

“So if it’s just me for the rest of your life…”

“Then it’ll just be you.”

“It sounds so simple.”

“It is simple. Our marriage only has two people.”

“So you don’t care whether we have kids?”

“If it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. Nothing is wrong with you, and there’s nothing wrong with me.” Yunho finally has a tiny suspicion as to how this line of questioning started. He cannot address it directly if Changmin doesn’t want to. While he can be pushy, this is most certainly not something he ever wants to push.

He nudges the teenager, making the boy sit up.

Staring up at him, Yunho can see the sadness in his eyes, and he doesn’t like it one bit.

“Will you tell me why you keep asking about children?”

The sadness in those bottomless eyes flares, changing to panic for one brief instance before the shutters come back down.

Changmin shakes his head, dropping his gaze. “I was just curious.”

The teenager can hear the lie in his own voice, and he knows his husband can too for the man tenses beneath him, between his thighs. Closing his eyes, he waits for the barrage of questions.

Instead, he feels himself being moved off his husband’s lap.

Opening his eyes, hurt exploding in his chest, he allows himself to be nudged to his feet, swaying slightly, due to having been folded up for so long.

The tears he’d been holding back for days threaten in that instance he thinks he is being rejected. Flight mode kicks in and Changmin turns to leave.

To run away.

Perhaps to Jaejoong who will love him regardless.

Yunho grabs his wife’s wrist just as the teenager steps away from him and tugs gently, making the willowy model stumble against his body, but he holds fast. He pulls Changmin in for a quick kiss, grinning at the teen’s expression and takes his hand properly, linking their fingers.

“Come on, lets go to bed.”

“Of course.”

Yunho stops short at the mocking tone in Changmin’s voice. Tugging the teenager back into his arms, he lifts a hand to card away at his young wife’s soft hair, pushing away the messy fringe so he can see his eyes.

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” Yunho speaks, voice serious, looking into the bottomless pools of his wife’s shimmering brown eyes. “But I do know that I don’t want you to be unhappy. I wanted to take you to bed because bedroom is yours. I just wanted you to be more comfortable Changmin-ah. I have no ulterior motives.”

Changmin doesn’t answer, eyes darting away.

“Look at me.”

His eyes dart back, looking into the unfathomable darkness in his husband’s almond eyes. Yunho is being very serious, and it is reflected so deeply, Changmin can believe he is seeing into his husband’s soul.

“I cannot fix all your problems, and I definitely cannot fix the ones you don’t tell me about. I know you like being independent and fixing your own troubles, and I’m happy to continue like that if that is your wish. I just want you to remember that we’re both on the same side. Your side. I’m always on your side.”

“Even when I’m fighting with you?”

Yunho chuckles ruefully. ‘I know it’s not me this time pup, and yes, even when somehow it’s my fault. I’m still on your side. I’m not infallible so I know I will fail, but ultimately, just know that I’m on your side.”

“What happens when I don’t believe you?”

“Then take it as my failing instead of yours. I’m almost twice your age so I really should know better.”

“Old man, I want to believe you, but I don’t know how.”

Yunho smiles, “Kiss me, and let me convince you.”

Changmin’s laughter is genuine, shaking his head and his hand free of Yunho he pivots on his heel and jogs out of the room.

“No ulterior motive huh? You have to catch me first.”

Yunho allows the teenager to disappear around the corner before he starts walking sedately after him. His expression is thoughtful, but the sadness that was lingering in Changmin’s eyes has transferred to him.

“We’re both fools, Changmin-ah,” he whispers to himself.

—

Sweaty and panting, Changmin rolls off his husband, not caring that he is sticky and leaking in all the usual places that make him want to grab a shower immediately.

He turns away, but Yunho is quick, spooning him immediately and nipping at a bare shoulder, kissing the bite and licking after it apologetically.

Changmin groans when he feels his husband’s sticky chest connecting with his sweaty back.

“Yunho…” his complaint is very clear in his voice. The single word, but his husband knows him well enough by now.

“I’ll clean you up.”

“No, you won’t. You’re almost asleep.”

“I will, baby.”

“Don’t call me baby,” Changmin slurs, eyes drooping. “Snot my name.”

“Brat then?”

“Mmmmm…”

The teenager is sound asleep in less than ten minutes, under the watchful eye and constant kisses of his much older husband.

Yunho is tired. Exhausted even, and absolutely loathe to let go of his young wife. The sex was intense, their coupling fierce and fiery, because once turned on, Changmin doesn’t know how to be anything else.

Soft, he doesn’t know how to be soft.

And yet twice, Yunho caught him cradling his very flat abdomen, as if remembering something, and then he stops being rough, toning it down in the blink of an eye.

But it never lasts.

As if a switch is flicked back on, and their joining becomes even more rough and intense, as if Changmin is determined to make up for that lapse.

Yunho cleans up his wife with a warm damp cloth.

Wiping down the long tanned limbs, his touch gentle as he observes the teenager in sleep.

Changmin’s hand is almost constantly laid over his belly, no matter how many times Yunho moves it away, till the older man leaves him be.

He may never get confirmation of what drove his wife home earlier than planned, and he knows Changmin lied about the shoot ending early because he called the teen’s agency to check if everything is ok. All he got was that Changmin had used a medical chit to get out of the shoot, paid the penalty, and left on the first flight out. They’d assumed he was sick.

Changmin is far from sick. Healthy as a horse might be a better description, but not all ailments can be seen.

The fact that Changmin chose to come home immediately helps somewhat in soothing the pang in the Jung mogul’s chest when his wife whimpers in his sleep, hand still unerringly over his abdomen.

Stretching out next to the sleeping teenager, the pang is soothed further when Changmin immediately turns to him, wrapping his arms around him and making like a baby koala.

And for the first time, his hand doesn’t seek to cradle his belly.

He hugs Yunho instead.

The older man captures that hand and links their fingers, his eyes closing, and he falls asleep to the gentle snores of his wife against his cheek, their hands interlaid over his heart.

Changmin may have lost the tangible, but he still has the intangible.

How long will it take for him to realize his reality is the same as his husband’s?

That the love goes both ways, and it always has.


End file.
